Paige was sitting next to Sabine while Andrea was doing the IV. Paige was trapped in her own head for a few moments, minutes, seconds, she didn’t know how long. She was stunned by how pale Sabine looked. Almost the pale grey THAT Henrik was the last time she saw him? NO! She could not let that happen! She didn’t know what she would do, but she wasn’t going to be forced to go on having lost another friend on this trip!
Paige looked around. Andrea was adjusting the flow rate of the IV and staring at Sabine. She was still covered in Sabine’s blood. God! What a mess the three of them looked! What a great way to make a good impression on new people.
Paige pulled the casualty blanket and the disposable heat blanket up around Sabine. Got to keep her warm. All was peaceful in the room. Meanwhile, there was a raging screaming match in Paige’s head.
‘Where was the help? Damn butterflies! You annoy me when I get like this! Where are you now that I really need you? Henrik, you have the knowledge! You said you would never leave me! Where are you?’ Paige pleaded with any god who would listen.
She cried out to Sabine’s God “Why do you forsake her when she is faithful to you. I don’t know what has happened to her in the past to hurt her, leaving the scar she tries to hide but we see but pretend not to see because that is what she wants. Why do you not save her now! what has she ever done to deserve more crap dished out on her? Hasn’t she suffered enough to prove she is loyal. HELP HER! Please. I need her, no matter what happens I hear her. She prays for others never herself. She helps others Help her please.”
Paige looked at Andrea. She had a strange look on her face. She had an emptiness about her. The normally bright optimism in her eyes was gone. It was as if she had already said goodbye to Sabine and was working on a stranger knowing the person was going die.
She could not bear to see her friends vanish before her. Andrea please don’t give up hope if you do I will”
Out loud, Paige said “What’s wrong?”
“We may have bigger problems.” Andrea was still focused on Sabine and fiddling with minor details. She didn’t want to look at Paige right now. Andrea could not make eye contact. She had to maintain this cold heartless person until they were alone.
Paige was about to ask what she meant when she heard strange sounds above her head; first a banging and then a thump and some screaming! This was followed by pounding footsteps in the ceiling.
Moments later, the guy from the gate came charging down the hall, a young girl in his arms, blood streaming down his arm as he carried her into the den.
“Quick! My daughter needs help!” he said. He set her gently on the couch then turned to Paige. Meanwhile, the girl was alternating between screaming and sobbing.
“Help HER! They shot her!” He pleaded to Paige who wasn’t sure why he brought her to her. It wasn’t like Paige was a medic. Andrea was the one fiddling with the med gear at the moment.
Andrea turned, a shocked look on her face. She started forward to help but was stopped cold by his next comment.
“NO! Not her! She brought this shit down on us!” His voice was sharp and full of venom.
Paige was confused. She was the one who led them here, called ahead, and lined everything up. As she started pulling more trauma gear out, she started talking.
“Sir, what do you mean? I don’t understand. I was the one who led us here.”
She was looking at the girl. She had to be all of nine or ten. Her left shoulder was a mess of blood and meat. She started with cutting the shirt from her. She looked up at the father.
“I need you to hold her still while I work.” She turned back to the kid. God! She didn’t know what she was doing! She had to talk to distract herself.
“What do you mean, Andrea brought this shit down on you? I led us here.”
“You didn’t blow the deputy’s head off while he was standing next to the Sheriff then threaten the Sherriff with a drone strike!”
Paige looked over at Andrea, who was six shades of pale and looked like she was going to throw up.
“Andrea, Combat gauze and a battle dressing out of the top of the pack.”
Paige turned to the father. “Sir, I need you to hold her still while I try and stop the bleeding.”
Andrea reached over to hand Paige what she asked for. “Here you go, Paige.”
It was about this time they heard a tapping or a thumping above them.
Paige took the supplies from Andrea with a look of ‘we will talk later’ and proceeded to pack the wound in the kid’s shoulder.
“Dad? What is her name?” Paige tried to engage the father a bit to distract him.
He was looking down at his little girl now. “Hera. Her name is Hera.”
“Well dad, Hera is a hurt little girl but I think we can get things slowed down and wrapped up. I need to talk to, your father is it? And see what else we can do to help since we brought the mess to you. Let me get her wound packed and wrapped, then I will look about something we can do for the pain.” It was then that the nature of the wound and the sounds above them came together. Hera was shot! And whoever shot her was still shooting at the top of the house! What the hell was going on?
About this time, the older man she knew as Penguin came back into the room.
“Kevin! What the hell happened?” He came running up to kneel at the side of the couch.
“I tell you what happened! The Sherriff didn’t believe the bluff and has brought in more people! I had Hera up in the cupola as a look out and they blasted her out of the cupola! She got shot in the ****ing shoulder! That’s what’s going on! They are still shooting the shit out of it! I don’t know why, but they are!” Kevin was understandably upset.
An older lady, about the same age as the older gentleman came into the room, carrying a rifle case. This she handed to the older man.
“Here, Karl, you need to take this. I’ll stay here and help. You and Kevin need to get things better organized. I don’t know what plan you have but it needs to include something to do about that oily-ass under-sheriff shooting the shit out of our home and trying to steal our land!”
She knelt down next to Paige at the couch. “Hi, I’m Isadora. Welcome to our home. Please forgive the reception, we normally have better manners.”
She immediately began assisting Paige in wrapping Hera’s shoulder. Isadora looked back at Kevin and Karl. “You two need to get Penny and David and Karen and get something squared away! I don’t want any more of my grandbabies hurt by that……Slime!”
Kevin seemed like he was going to object until Isadora looked at him. He knew that look from his youth. He wasn’t going to win and better just get to work. Besides, Kevin knew Hera would be as safe as she could be with Isadora there.
Paige finished wrapping the shoulder and stood. Turning towards the older gentleman, “Karl? I’m Paige and Andrea” she pointed, “and Sabine” pointed again.
Karl decided Isadora had made the leap in her head they were all in this together and the sooner they worked like it, the better.
“Paige, Andrea, This is Isadora, my wife, Kevin my son, and Hera my granddaughter. The short-haired woman running around here is our other daughter Karen, and David is her husband. He is over in the barn as a lookout. The red headed pipsqueak about Hera’s size is Olivia, my other granddaughter. Her mother is the other red-head in the bunch, Penny, Kevin’s wife.”
Andrea and Paige’s head swam with all the names. They knew they would never remember all of them. They would take it as they went.
Andrea spoke up. “Karl, if they already took care of the lookout in the cupola, why are they still shooting it?”
Karl had a sad smile on his face now. “You, young lady.”
Andrea was startled. “Me? Why would they shoot up your cupola because of me?”
“They aren’t shooting up my cupola. They are shooting up my antenna. I figure, they don’t want you to be able to contact your boss or worse, your drone. I figure their line of thinking is if they can wipe us out before you tell your tale, they are free and clear.”
Kevin was livid now. “Wipe us out! What the ****! This isn’t some movie where the bad guys wipe out the village! They don’t do those things! This is America!”
Paige had had enough. She stepped forward to Kevin. Grabbing a handful of his shirt, she brought her face within inches of his. “This USED to be America! If you have notice in you corner of paradise things have changed. Now it’s a SHIT Sandwich. These ****s out there, if they are willing to do this now, they would have sooner or later! I’m sorry for bringing this shit show to you. I really am, Kevin, but what we knew as ‘right’ died a couple months ago.” Paige seemed to be spooling even harder. Andrea wasn’t sure what to do but watch.
Paige continued. “Six months ago, I was happy, a Marine working a job I was proud of, living with my boyfriend and our friends in a beautiful home looking forward to good things in my future. Now, I’m on the run, have only the stuff in our two trucks, which are out of fuel, have no home, five days ago I hand dug a grave in the wilderness for my husband of nine weeks, just carried one of my two best friends into a strangers house bleeding to death from gunshot wounds from a band of brigands with badges who thought this gave them the right to take our stuff, and I will quite probably be killed trying to defend them and you to the death, all the while trying to figure a way for my best friend to escape the noose and to have her baby so one of us lives through this hell to have a future so don’t talk to me about causing you problems. Now get out of my way!”
The room was stunned to silence as Paige pushed Kevin out of the way resolved to find a way to hold off the arrogant sheriff until maybe the help her Grandfather was sending arrived in the hopes they could help. All she hoped was her friends could hold on too.
“Karl, I am truly sorry for the problem we have brought. I will do everything I can to help fix it. We do have a few weapons if that will help. I think Andrea dropped them in the entryway,”
Paige turned around and looked at Andrea. “Stay here and keep an eye on Sabine and Hera. Keep the fluid going into Sabine and yell if her breathing gets worse. Maybe you and Karl can figure out some other way to run another antenna.”
Before Andrea could reply, Paige stepped past Kevin and Karl on her way to the entryway and the weapons and packs Andrea left there.